'The Congress has become two distinct parties, one of the durbar, the other of the field and if they keep drifting apart, death is a certainty,' says Shekhar Gupta.
In his first exclusive interview to rediff.com after he was made in-charge of Uttar Pradesh, politically the most crucial state of India in May 2013, Shah speaks at length about his task in UP, his party and his boss Narendra Modi, the prime ministerial candidate of the BJP.
Shukla claimed that the current Nitish Kumar-led dispensation would be ousted after the elections and people have started protesting against the ruling alliance leaders in public meetings.
Unless controlled and contained, given the untested belief that the north Indian labour support and follow the Hindutva kind of political ideology, there is a potential in terms of ideological clashes with their Dravidian brethren in the local neighbourhoods, and it all escalating into violence, especially during election time, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
The Indian authorities have to reconfirm that Prabhakaran is dead. It may require seeking assistance from Interpol and also involve the re-opening of the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, and more so, the investigations, formally or otherwise, asserts N Sathiya Moorthy.
Terming the UGC directive on the rollback of the four-year undergraduate programme as a decision taken in "haste", the Congress on Tuesday said the step was going to "boomerang" on the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance government.
'Partition was a two-sided story in a very big way.' 'We've oversimplified it, blamed the British, thought of ourselves only as victims.' 'We've been both victims and perpetrators.'
Yadav claimed that his boss Nitish Kumar, with whom he took oath the day before, has issued instructions to the officials concerned to accord "top priority" to job creation.
The Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party, allies in the Shiv Sena-led Maha Viaks Aghadi government in Maharashtra, on Monday demanded that the Central Bureau of Investigation reveal its final finding into the Sushant Singh Rajput death case.
If there is unity in the Opposition, it is only about regional parties other than the DMK not wanting Rahul Gandhi or any other Congress leader for prime minister, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
Veteran Trinamool Congress MP Sisir Adhikari -- father of BJP heavyweight Suvendu Adhikari -- joined the party in Egra in the presence of Union Home Minister Amit Shah and other senior leaders of the party.
BJP leader from Haryana and actor Sonali Phogat died of a heart attack in Goa, police said on Tuesday.
'Uddhav has told the cops to crack down hard on the MNS agitation if MNS activists try to vitiate the communal harmony in the state.'
'Bommai is everybody's man and nobody's man'
Amid demands for a separate state carved out of Bengal by some Bharatiya Janata Party leaders, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday asserted that she is ready to shed her own blood, if need be, to thwart attempts to divide the state.
The Congress urged Modi to come forward and order a JPC probe into the Rafale deal.
Refusing to back down, the AAP government said it will challenge the order in the Supreme Court, asserting it has been targeted for trying to contain corruption. It also questioned why the Constitution was amended to have a legislative assembly if the city was to be run by the LG.
Success in Karnataka's assembly polls will hinge on two factors: Drop a large number of incumbent MLAs and project Modi and not the state leaders, least of all Bommai.
The argument that a Bharatiya Janata Party government has no business marking the 125th birth anniversary of Panditji makes little sense, says Virendra Kapoor
Days after senior West Bengal minister Partha Chatterjee was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with the school recruitment scam, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday slammed the media for allegedly launching a "malicious campaign" against her party.
The party brought back Yashwant Sinha as its national vice-president.
In this event, it is the IAF that showed true professionalism, telling the boss they weren't going to fly in that weather. You can see what professionalism and moral courage it takes to say no to your prime minister. Only things like that can keep him safe, observes Shekhar Gupta.
Gujarat legislator Jignesh Mevani on Monday alleged that his arrest by the Assam police is a pre-planned conspiracy "designed" by the Prime Minister's Office to destroy him ahead of assembly elections in the state and termed it an act of "56-inch cowardice".
With the Aam Admi Party rewriting the rules of the game in politics, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi plans to take a cue from it by dropping undeserving sitting MPs and fielding fresh new faces in next year's Lok Sabha elections. Anita Katyal reports
A day after the National Democratic Alliance finalised the seat-sharing arrangement for the Bihar assembly elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party has emerged as the 'big-brother' and the largest party in the state to contest the number of seats.
Ramesh released some fresh documents including one of 1949 which showed that the Dholpur Palace was owned by the Rajasthan government.
"If you show us (threaten us with) ED, we will also send proof against BJP leaders to the agency. A section of BJP ministers and leaders is hand in glove with the coal mafia. They even stayed at hotels run by them during elections," she said.
At Congress' Surajkund conclave, Sonia Gandhi clarified that the government must toe the party line. Renu Mittal reports.
RCP Singh alleged that Kumar "had made up his mind to betray the mandate of 2020 when people had voted the NDA back to power."
A potpourri of political parties are in the fray in Goa.
According to state government sources, not only did the governor insert some corrections, but he also initialled the final draft after those corrections had been made, reveals N Sathiya Moorthy.
Any defeat for the BJP now would imply that anti-incumbency against Modi has set in, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
External Affairs Minister S M Krishna on Tuesday met Congress president Sonia Gandhi in the wake of the controversy surrounding Minister of State Shashi Tharoor's role in the IPL's Kochi team. IPL commissioner Lalit Modi recently alleged that Tharoor had asked him not to disclose details about owners of the consortium led by Rendezvous that bought the new Kochi franchisee.Tharoor hit back at Modi by alleging that he had made attempts to pressure the winning consortium.
On Gandhi, Obama says he has 'a nervous, unformed quality about him, as if he were a student who'd done the coursework and was eager to impress the teacher but deep down lacked either the aptitude or the passion to master the subject', according to The New York Times review.
'The Congress's allies won't be left behind in looking out for their own interests. Some will demand a bigger share of the ministerial or electoral pie, others will simply jump ship,' says T V R Shenoy.
This is the second time in a month that Minister of State in PMO Narayanasamy has met the DMK patriarch, whose party is the largest ally of Congress with 18 Lok Sabha members after the exit of Mamata Banerjee-led TMC.
Chinese leader-in-waiting Xi Jinping on Wednesday met visiting US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta, in the first public meeting with a visiting foreign dignitary since his mysterious disappearance early this month that sparked rumours about his health.
Sampdoria president Massimo Ferrero has been banned for three months and fined 10,000 euros ($12,400) for referring to Inter Milan's Indonesian owner Erick Thohir as "that Filipino" and saying he should leave the club.
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